


The Strong One

by gossamerempire



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-25
Updated: 2013-04-25
Packaged: 2017-12-09 11:29:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/773701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gossamerempire/pseuds/gossamerempire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This business between them is pleasant; if he does not love her, he is not unkind enough to tell her, at least. Modern AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Strong One

Elia’s mother luxuriates in her own cunning at the match. “You should have seen Tywin’s face,” she croons. “But what did he expect? Dragons have always submitted to the Sun.”

Ashara snorts openly when she hears of the news. “You can do so much better than a gloomy idiot plucking a harp,” she says frankly, thumbing through the glossy pages of a magazine. “But Arthur speaks highly of him, so I suppose that counts for something. Mind you, I guess he _has_ to say nice things about him.”

Oberyn, though he makes a grand show of rolling his eyes and muttering his disinterest, is pleased. He sews the ruby-encrusted chotli into Elia’s hair himself, despite Ashara’s protests (“if it is crooked, I _will_ murder you”). His fingers, while familiar with curling around a spear, are thick and inexperienced with the jewels. But he pulsates with such pride, that even Ashara does not have the heart to tell the Red Viper that the blood-red stones sit a little more askew, on his sister’s forehead, than they should.

As Oberyn leads her from the room, Elia is sure that she will miss her brother the most.

She hopes that Rhaegar will be kind, and that she will not be savaged by the north.

~*~

It is three weeks into her marriage before Elia cottons onto the madness within these four walls.

As per custom, they are gathered around the dinner table, with the notable exception of her father-in-law.

Aerys is prone to having his meals in the basement, it seems, with the steady stream of people that his associates are forever frog-marching down into the depths of the manor.

“Rhaella!”

Rhaegar tenses visibly next to her, as his father’s voice punctures the comfortable silence. Elia is certain that she can detect the scent of smoke in the air.

“RHAELLA!”

Her mother-in-law’s regal knuckles are white against the cutlery; Elia can see the tremble in the woman’s hands, as Rhaella excuses herself from the table.

They eat the rest of their meal in troubled quiet. Viserys, uncharacteristically unenthused by dessert, pushes his pudding absently around on his plate, his cheek resting in the hollow of his small palm.

“If my father calls for her when I’m away,” Rhaegar whispers later when they are abed, his lips ghosting against the flesh of her shoulder, “you tell me, okay? You let me know.”

Rhaeger wraps his arms tight around Elia that night, as though he is afraid of what might happen if he does not anchor her to him.

In the morning, the bruises blooming beneath Rhaella’s skin speak volumes, and have their own tales to tell.

~*~

This business between them is pleasant; if he does not love her, he is not unkind enough to tell her, at least.

~*~

Elia has all but given up on the resolution of modern medicine. But she receives the results that have eluded her for so long, when the children are small, for the umpteenth blood test she has taken in this life.

“Mrs. Targaryen, it is manageable _,_ _”_ says the doctor. He oscillates, as if unsure as to how to proceed, “but I must warn you: there will be complications. I know that you and your husband were trying for another child, but I would advise against that in the interim.”

She accepts the news with as much grace as she can muster, blinking back the scorch of tears, because she is a Martell by birth and resisting collapse is what they _do_.

But later, far from the clinical confines of the medical surgery, all of her steely resolve dissolves. She weeps without ceremony in his arms, when she returns home.

_Please don’t tell your father. Please, oh pleaseohplease._

Rhaegar stifles her whimpers by angling his mouth over her own, swallowing her words whole as he eases her softly onto their bed.

“I chose you,” he breathes against her throat, working his way down her body and unravelling her with his tongue. “Others were thrown at me, lionesses were thrown at me, but I chose you.”

~*~

Six months later, he buys her a firearm. It is a small, deadly thing; her insides roil upon the sight of it.

“Where did you-” she begins, her speech faltering as she takes in the cold, charcoal-hued metal.

He looks harried and careworn. Business trips that he does not care to explain, and that she has not grown to enquire about, have detained him as of late. She has not seen him for many moons.

“That isn’t important,” he urges, closing her fingers over the weapon. “Promise me you’ll use it when the time comes.”

He desperately searches her face for a response.

She nods limply. “I promise.”

He presses his lips against the wispy hairlines of his children, as he departs, with a helpless, defeated look in his eyes. Rhaegar does not tell her when he will return, and for some reason, she becomes afraid.

~*~

The time for kindness, it seems, has run its course when her husband unabashedly presents another woman ( _though truly, it would be generous to call this young girl a woman_ ) with jewels, in the midst of polite company.

Elia feels sallow under the scrutiny, as the gazes of their guests flicker unconsciously to her own bare throat. She faintly registers Ashara gripping her hand tightly in her own, as the blow settles.

That night, Oberyn is true to the moniker that he has earned, and makes his displeasure known: it takes three men to bodily restrain him while he spits venom, and curses the dragon that has shamed his sister so.

“The sapphires complement the she-wolf’s eyes too well for it not to have been planned,” says Ashara, her expression stormy.

It is painful, but Elia cannot help but agree. The _forethought,_ above all else, stings the most.

~*~

She understands later, when they learn of his fall, why he did not say _if_ the time comes.

The wintry feel of the gun in her palm is almost a comfort, when the walls of the estate are breached.

As the footsteps pound to her door, she squares her shoulders (for her son in her arms and her daughter seeking refuge under her Rhaegar’s bed), and wonders if she is the strong one after all.


End file.
